He didn’t.

He just ran his lips over the vulnerable crook of my elbow, back and forth, soft as moth wings, until I felt every snowflake sizzle on my exposed skin, every tree root and acorn under my knees, even the smell of cedars as it tickled my nostrils. I was exposed, like a bare electrical wire. My teeth chattered.

Nicholas’s eyes were like gray fog on the ocean, the kind that sinks ships and leads people off cliff sides. It wasn’t pretty or magical; it was deadly.

But he was still Nicholas; he had to be.

He licked at the blood pebbling over the numerous scratches and scrapes I’d already sustained. His mouth was gentle, completely at odds with the burning angle of my shoulder and the smug sinister shadow of Solange falling over me. The snow was starting to stick, making the forest too soft and too bright.

When the bite of fangs sunk sharply into my skin, I couldn’t help but make a small strangled sound. It hurt, but only briefly. Nicholas ran his tongue over the cut, then sucked gently until blood welled into his mouth. I felt him swallow, felt the brush of cold air on the small cuts, the pressure of his mouth when he bent to drink again.

I felt lightheaded even though I knew, logically, that he’d barely drunk enough to notice the loss. I’d bled more the time my grandma’s psychotic cat bit me.

“There,” he said to Solange, wiping a small drop off his lower lip. “I’m with you, but Lucy?” He sounded dark, and baleful. “Lucy’s mine.”

Epilogue

Kieran

Saturday night, 11:00 p.m.

If Solange wasn’t trying to get herself killed, Lucy was.

I was beginning to think that all of my training wasn’t actually about killing vampires anymore, it was about saving my girlfriend and her best friend from themselves. And it was a full-time job.

Though technically, Solange was my ex-girlfriend now.

But that didn’t sound right, and it sure as hell didn’t feel right either, even if it had seemed inevitable that night on my front porch. I could still feel the shape of her under my hands, see the look on her face and the delicate treachery of her fangs when I kissed her.

I didn’t know what my dad would think about Solange and me. Treaty or not, hunters and vampires didn’t date. And they sure as hell didn’t fall in love.

Until the Drakes.

Now even Hunter had fallen, for Quinn, of all vampires. It effectively made us both traitors or revolutionary heroes, depending on who you asked. I didn’t want to be a traitor; I didn’t even want to be a hero.

I just wanted Solange back.

But first I had to find Lucy and rescue her, despite the fact that I knew damned well she’d hate the term “rescue.” The GPS flashed another warning, and I checked my position one last time before slipping it into my pocket. I headed deeper into the woods. Thank God she wasn’t in the Blood Moon camp. I’d never get her out of there. As it was, I should probably call Hunter for backup. Eric wouldn’t come, not for a vampire. He was better about my new friends than the others, but he wasn’t quite to the point of helping me save one.

It didn’t matter. There wasn’t any time anyway.

Because if the GPS tag was activated, it meant only one thing: Lucy was in trouble. And so was Nicholas. Because the only reason he wouldn’t save her himself was if he couldn’t.

I had no idea what kind of situation I was heading into. I had stakes on my belt, Hypnos powder secured up my sleeve, and nose plugs around my neck. I always had nose plugs with me, ever since I’d realized I couldn’t fully trust Solange anymore. I put them on and kept off the trail, trying not to crack twigs under my boots and give myself away. Vampire hearing had me at a disadvantage, but I was used to that. I was used to a lot of things now.

I cleared my head and concentrated on where I was going. A distracted hunter didn’t last long. And at least, despite everything, I was still a hunter. I could rely on that, on the training a hundred years of tradition had afforded me. Even if I did use it for rather less than traditional reasons.

The forest was cold, hung with frost and a thin dusting of snow. Thick pine boughs muffled the last moments of the night into an eerie silence. Dawn wasn’t far off; there was already a slight pink tinge to the light. Another weapon at my disposal, even if I couldn’t hang it off my belt. I ran for nearly twenty minutes before I saw signs of habitation: a scrap of lace caught on a thorny branch, a lantern half-buried in snow, and finally an empty wine bottle in a decorative metal cage hung with rubies.

Also, a vampire.

She dropped out of the tree above me, landing quietly. She didn’t say a word, didn’t even bother with the trademark vampiric smirk upon finding a lone hunter in the woods. She just attacked, launched into a feral deadly dance that blurred the colors of her dress and shook the bare branches around us. I didn’t have time to fight.

And I didn’t have time to lose either.

She cracked her elbow into my stomach before I could dodge her. I doubled over, cursing on a strangled gasp. I used the momentum of my stumble to drop to the ground and roll to the side. I came up, kicking out to catch her ankles with my steel-toe boots. She hissed in pain. It was the only moment I was likely to get. As she staggered, I released the Hypnos from the casing under my cuff. White powder exploded in a cloud right in her face. Before she could react, the hypnotic powder was entering her bloodstream, seeping into her pores. Her pale eyes dilated, her lips lifted off angry fangs.

“Stop,” I ordered, pushing to my feet. Dried leaves and pine needles clung to my clothes. “Go home.”